The Frustration of Trying to Know the Unknowable
La frustración de intentar conocer lo incognoscible
A student describes a recurring cycle of seeking understanding, reaching frustration, losing interest, and then being drawn back again, and the teacher explores what is really being sought and how to work with the frustration that arises.
The Frustration of Trying to Know the Unknowable
A student describes a recurring cycle of seeking understanding, reaching frustration, losing interest, and then being drawn back again, and the teacher explores what is really being sought and how to work with the frustration that arises.
There are many times when it gets to this point where I am so clear: I cannot get this. There is no one, no me here to get this, whatever "this" is. And then there is an intentional staying away from non-duality, staying away from trying to know what I am. So there is a staying away happening, as if I have totally lost interest. But then there is a gravitating back, a wondering: what is this? And then it gets to a point again where I think, "I cannot get this," and there is the staying away again. This cycle keeps repeating. That is what is happening.
What are you looking for?
I don't know. No idea.
What is non-duality for you? Why is it calling you?
It has come to just this, and any explanation of this is just ideas. Mentally, it gets to this conclusion: no more understanding is needed. I don't need to study anything about what this is. So mentally there is a stopping of trying to understand what this is, or even feel what this is. It is whatever it feels. And then there is the staying away from trying to know this or learn this. I get into other things, maybe watching videos about other subjects. But then I keep gravitating back to listening to people talk about awakening, about what this is. And yet I am losing interest in what people are saying about it.
The cycle of seeking and frustration
I have a sense of what you are talking about. You are onto something. You are onto something real. But it seems like you have, in a sense, a condition or a requirement or an expectation that you are going to get it or understand it in a certain way. And what you are trying to get, you will not understand in that way. It is like trying to reduce the unknowable into the known. That is why you get interested and then frustrated, interested and then frustrated.
There are also some teachers who talk about seeking being the problem. And so thoughts arise like, "I should just stop looking. I should stop seeking." Then the mind goes back and forth: looking for something I can understand in the way I know and understand things, trying to bring the unknowable into the knowable. That is frustrating. It is never going to work. And then I abandon the search. I go back to my normal interests. Maybe they distract me for a while, but then they seem hollow. Then I go back to this, because this seems more real.
Yes, it is frustration. A lot of frustration.
Something has to break
Frustration is one word for anger. Something is being challenged. Speaking as if I am imagining what you are going through as if it were happening to me: it is the wanting to understand this in the way I want it to be understood. And that is an impossible task. It will always fail.
In a sense, life is taking you, you are taking yourself, to a point where something has to break. Metaphorically, right? Something needs to drop. That is what I am proposing, and it is also what I recommend. It is like leaving the known for the unknown, and it is wonderful. But the process can be very challenging. As you know, there is the frustration, and there is probably more of what I call fear and pain. But the journey is worth it.
That is my job here. What I offer is that kind of motivation, the proposal to keep exploring. I say quite emphatically: do not stop seeking.
Yes.
The problem is seeking the wrong thing in the wrong place. But when we find what we are looking for, it is completely satisfying. So until you are completely satisfied, don't stop.
Working with frustration without manufacturing it
Do you recommend just keeping on feeling frustrated?
If frustration arises, feel it. But don't create a plan where you go toward what frustrates you in order to break free from frustration. That is like the self-flagellating monks who realized that Jesus went to the cross and seemed to have done pretty well, not in the experience of the cross, but in the realization. And so they whipped themselves, thinking, "He was whipped, so that must be the way." But it is not. It is what happened within his process as he was whipped. So when frustration arises, be with the frustration. When I say go toward fear, go toward pain, I mean as opposed to always running away from it. But it is not about creating situations of frustration.